


Sunset

by genderneutralnoun



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alphyne-Centric, Angst, Determination Headcanons, Determination Research, F/F, Floor Pie (Undertale), Flowey being weird af, I am a terrible person, Slow Burn, be a good person??? lol, because he can't reset anymore, headcanons, seriously the best Flowey is him being coy and unnesecarily difficult, what else is he supposed to do with his time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14504922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genderneutralnoun/pseuds/genderneutralnoun
Summary: A new advancement in Determination research reveals a future better left unknown.





	Sunset

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omoni/gifts).



Frisk loved the Underground.

They loved the peace and quiet, the friendliness of the few who still lived down there. It was populated by humans as well as monsters these days; people whose eyes were tired of the sun and wished to rest. If they didn’t have so many responsibilities, they would spend an awful lot more time here, but that was what it was.

Frisk tried to focus on that calm, but it was hard, knowing why they had come here. They knew worrying about it wouldn’t do any good, and it would be better to be calm when they arrived, but it hung over them like a great grey cloud. It was hard to decide if it was even worth the effort to try and stave off.

Either way, it didn’t really matter, now that they were nearly at their destination. Whatever happened was what would happen. There was little else they could do about it.

Frisk was past the well-worn steps and walking through the archway when the person, or rather, the flower they had come to see popped out of the ground. 

“Howdy, Frisk!” It was his normal cheery greeting, but it had a rushed feeling to it, as if the speaker was eager to get niceties out of the way and on to the real topic. “There anything else you wanna talk about besides what you said?”

Frisk shook their head. “No. Just that.”

Flowey bent and straightened his stem in a repetitive motion, like the flower equivalent of bouncing up and down impatiently, as Frisk set down their pack and checked if the ground was dirty (which it wasn’t) before sitting down cross-legged. “You gotta tell me, Frisk,” the golden flower begged. “You said it had to do with determination, didn’t ya? And the lizard is in this, too?”

“Yes. Alphys is a big part of the reason why we’ve gotten so far.” Frisk rubbed their eyes tiredly. Last night had been rather sleepless. “We’ve even been able to extract small amounts of adult determination without harming the humans themselves. And there’s quite a few monsters who’ve volunteered to be tested on if the situation calls for it, Alphys among them; but none of them have been anywhere near mortally endangered. Which is a good thing of course, but it means we still have very little data on the actual effects.”

Flowey made a show of yawning hugely. “Big whoop. You know I’m not interested in your boring day-to-day life stories. I’m interested in why  _ you  _ decided you needed to share this with me!”

Frisk nodded, brushing past the open hostility in the flower’s words. “Because you’re another potential source of information. With this new discovery of ours, any knowledge you have has become valuable enough for us to offer something you want in exchange for it. Within reason,” they added sharply, at which Flowey merely cackled. “Anything you can think of off the top of your head?”

The soulless flower was quiet for an uncomfortably long stretch of time. Then, “I don’t need anythin’. I’ll tell ya what I know.”

Frisk’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re serious?” they asked archly. “Why would you just do that? What would be in it for you?”

“Because what else have I got to do?” he shot back archly, his face contorting briefly, as if he wanted to use his scary face but then decided better of it. “It’s not as if there’s anything new. I know all these people already,” he muttered. 

“Okay,” Frisk said, sitting up a little straighter and closing their eyes briefly as they thought. “Okay. Are you sure?” they asked again. “In exchange, I could promise a permanent stream of information on the world for you. For however long you live, I might not be able to come down and tell you every week.”

“You’d do that anyway, idiot,” Flowey said, rolling his eyes. “You’re too nice.”

Frisk considered this. “I mean, you’re not wrong,” they said thoughtfully, to the sound of a triumphant cackle. “Alright. Tell me what you know.”

“Better get comfy,” the flower said, nodding at the bag Frisk had brought down, which he knew by now to contain a picnic blanket and serving of Floor Pie.

 

* * *

 

“So, let me get this straight,” Frisk said, adjusting their glasses and writing on the notebook in front of them. “‘All organisms have Determination, but magical organisms- commonly known as ‘monsters’- usually have much lower amounts, and high concentrations of DT in monsters can result in certain negative symptoms, like a shorter life span. Naturally high DT production is caused by personality traits, as a monster’s ‘Soul’ is directly linked to their body and how it acts.’”

“Yeah, nice textbook phrasing,” Flowey said sarcastically. “But seriously. You asked me how I know all this, right?” Frisk nodded. “In one of my timelines where I got everyone out of the Underground, I went without Resetting for so long that- believe it or not- Alphys’ and Undyne’s daughter in that timeline, who took after Alphys, went looking for the old monster kingdom. And she found it.”

Frisk dropped their pencil. “She  _ what? _ ”

“Yeah, you heard right.” Flowey bounced a little, then sighed. “I was on good terms with the Surface in that line, so when she came back, I went with her the second time. It was really overgrown and full of bugs- but that’s not important. The point is, we found these medical records that must have been left behind in the exodus, and they were all about the interaction of DT with monsters.”

“Wow,” Frisk said faintly. “You read it all, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively. “If you’re  _ so _ curious, gimme a computer and a month or so and I’ll type it up for you. ‘Least I got my memory.”

“I’ll do that,” they declared. “But right now, more about DT?”

“Gotcha. See, not only does the monster’s ability to produce DT depend on its personality, its DT must also be  _ sustained _ by its personality. Remember the Amalgamates?”

Frisk shuddered. “Oh, you bet I do.”

“Well, their personality couldn’t sustain the high amounts of DT that Alphys- that was injected into them.” Flowey changed his phrasing halfway through when Frisk gave him a sharp look. “If they just had a little, they could have survived, and might even have been able to wake up- see, here’s the complicated part. DT is basically supercondensed magical energy.”

Flowey stopped, as if waiting for a reaction. Frisk gestured with their pencil. “Go on, I’m waiting.”

“Ugh, okay. So yeah, supercondensed magic. Humans and other things with physical bodies have such high DT because they isolate all of their magical energy from their physical bodies in order to stay physical. In order to do that, their body condensed it, and it became DT. In that way, humans became more physically resilient, in exchange for, well, a physical body. A less spiritual connection to the world.”

“Ooh, now  _ that’s  _ interesting,” Frisk said excitedly, then coughed and tried to put on a serious face. “I mean, scientifically fascinating. This is a very serious subject.”

“Sure, Four-Eyes,” the flower said mischievously. “Anyway, there are various moral pros and cons, but basically humans lost the ability to directly access their magical energy- some still knew how, but it was very precise and the practice of magic died out centuries ago- and as it was super-condensed, could only tap into it to be, well, Determined. Suddenly, humans started living longer, living  _ better, _ building better castles, making better art, fighting better wars. And you can probably guess how that ended up.”

Frisk nodded slowly. “Humans became suspicious of their monster neighbors, who could take their stronger Souls but had no reason to, because they were content with what they had, which didn’t make sense to humans anymore. They became afraid of what they would never dare do- well, until all this,” they finished, gesturing to the golden flowers that Flowey had been looking at before the came.

“Exactly.” Flowey sighed. “But I’m guessing you weren’t here for a history lesson?”

“It’s very fascinating, but you’re right, we should stay focused on the topic at hand.” Frisk tapped their chin with the end of their pencil. “Now, continue.”

“Yes, Master,” the flower said sarcastically.

“Hey.” Frisk’s face turned suddenly scary; quite the feat for a twelve-year old who, as Toriel put it, ‘just hadn’t hit their growth spurt yet’. “I brought weed repellent.”

Flowey hastily resumed. “Anyway, monsters can also condense magical energy into DT, and they all have at least a little in them so that if their body has to produce a lot very quickly, it doesn’t shock their system and they develop a DT allergy. But monsters’ entire bodies are made up of magical energy, and ‘cause every organism starts out with the same amount of magical energy, they couldn’t make nearly enough DT to match a human, let alone gain control of a timeline. It’s like energy and matter; it can be neither created nor destroyed, just one turned into the other. Actually, no, that’s a bad analogy.” Flowey paused for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Magical energy  _ is  _ created at birth, and  _ is _ destroyed through injury, trauma, or death. Ignore what I said just now.”

“Mmm, thanks,” Frisk said dryly, flipping their pencil to erase something.

“Glad to be of service.” The flower bowed theatrically. “Continuing on: Even if you injected DT into a monster with the personality to match, it probably wouldn’t work very well, ‘cause even the strongest monster wouldn’t be able to hold enough to match a human. And that brings me to my next point- that even naturally produced DT can be bad for monsters.”

“Yes?”

“Well, think about it,” Flowey said blithely. “If DT is being made from the monster’s magical energy, which is what’s used to make the monster’s body, then what does that mean?”

“The monster’s body get weaker,” Frisk said slowly.

“Right you are. And because of personality, most of those with high DT use up their reserve stores quickly- training, fighting, growing. Even if it weren’t for that, they peter out faster than most monsters. They die of natural causes sooner.”

“Wow,” Frisk said quietly. “That’s… sad. There’s no other word for it.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Flowey said plainly. “Anyway, let’s go back to the Amalgamates. If you inject small amounts of DT into monsters that are naturally low, their bodies will slowly convert the DT into magical energy. But you can’t do that for high-DT monsters, because their bodies will just keep the excess DT until they melt. Now, I think that’s all the immediate stuff. Oh, and yeah- what DT does for a monster is keep them together for longer when affected by physical injuries. In near-death scenarios, it basically begins replacing the monster’s body with pure DT, which can go one of several ways. First, the DT replacement is small, and the attack stops immediately. The monster might survive this, but they’ll be very weak for the short time they’ve got left. Second, the DT replacement is small, and the attack does not stop. In the first scenario and this one, if the monster does not survive the encounter, they melt instead of fading into dust. Third, the DT replacement is large, and the attack stops immediately. In this one, the attack can even go on for a long time; as long as the monster survives the encounter, they will become very powerful, but as a result, its body will be permanently locked in “panic mode”, and they will lose most of its emotional regulation. The medical records said that some of their warriors in the past purposefully got themselves in life-threatening situations in order to trigger this so they could fight alongside human armies, but very few succeeded. Fourth, the DT replacement is large, and the attack does not stop. Well, it’s very simple- they obtain great power for a monster for that small period, but because they die, it is lost. Even in the third scenario, they won’t live very long without magical energy.”

“Wow,” said Frisk faintly. “That’s… intriguing. I honestly don’t know how to feel about it.”

“Well, it’s not as if I can help you there,” Flowey said icily. “Why don’t you take the info to Alphys? That’s what you planned to do, right?”

Before Frisk could respond, Flowey pulled back into the earth, effectively ending the conversation.

“Okay,” Frisk said after a moment of silence. “Okay.”

_ If only doing that was as easy as it seemed a half an hour ago. _

_ If Determination depends on personality, then that could only mean…  _

Decisively, Frisk snapped their notebook closed, gathered up the blanket, and hurried out of the Underground.


End file.
